Processes and procedures for preparing and applying coatings to the outer surfaces of certain raw food substrates prior to freezing and finish cooking them, in particular potato products such as french fries, are generally known in the art and widely used. For example, starch-based coatings have been applied to cut, raw potato strips which are to be made into french fries, in an effort to obtain one or more of the following objectives: 1) improved visual appearance of the finished (cooked) product; 2) improved eating characteristics, especially surface crispness along with tender moist interiors, of the cooked product; and 3) extended holding time during which the finished product can be held under a heat lamp or the like while maintaining good post-preparation characteristics for consumption by a final consumer. These coatings are typically applied as a slurry or batter, and form a generally clear or at least minimally noticeable coat after they are dried on the substrates, especially after the coated substrates are parfried. Such “clear coats” are important because of their ability to at least partially maintain the natural appearance of the food substrate while imparting increased surface crispness and internal tenderness to it following final preparation. To this end, food coatings have been developed previously that were applied to sliced raw potato strips for french fries that were then at least briefly deep-fried and frozen for storage prior to finish cooking and consumption.
While used in the manufacture of french-fries from raw potato strips for many years, the concept of applying such coatings to the outer surfaces of thin, sheet-like slices of raw food substrates such as those used to make potato chips, or to dough-based snack or convenience food items such as bagel chips, and numerous other corn-based, wheat-based, rice-based, and oat-based snacks etc., and to baked goods such as doughnuts and other such “sweet goods” has never heretofore been either apprehended or attempted. Conventionally, raw potato chip slices are blanched and then dried prior to being fried or baked or otherwise cooked. After being dried and cooked, the chips (and other such “savory” snack products as well) are coated using a sprayed-on oil, and they are then passed through a rotating tumbler while introducing salt, coloring, flavoring, seasoning, and similar ingredients. Since this tumbling is done after the chips have been fried or baked (or otherwise cooked), it causes a significant amount (sometimes as much as 20-25%) of breakage into smaller, undesirable, and certainly less appealing pieces, since these types of snack food items are fragile and easily broken. Additional such breakage occurs during the packaging process, and again during subsequent handling, shipping, etc. This is very undesirable, since customers want to receive unbroken snack food items (potato and other chips, pretzels, crackers, etc.) when they purchase a product, not bits and pieces.
Currently, in the case of doughnuts, the only coating applied by the industry is merely a very sweet glaze coating, consisting mostly of sugar and/or chocolate ingredients, which is applied after baking. Due to their high levels of sugar, this type of coating has an extremely low water activity and is not in the same category as the water-dispersible batter or slurry starch-based coatings applied to french-fry potato strips, for example. In a basically complete departure from this, coatings for such conventional sweet goods in accordance with the present invention consist of less than 10%, and preferably less than 5%, sugar ingredients.
As noted above, the use of starch-based coatings on the strip-like cut raw potato substrates used to make french-fry potatoes has been known for some time. Through long experience, the industry has increasingly recognized that rice is an advantageous component to be used in these coating formulations. Rice provides added crispiness to the finish-cooked coated potato strip substrate. When used on cut, raw potato strips which are to become french-fries, the potato strips are typically first blanched, which includes immersing the cut, raw potato strips in a water bath for about 15 minutes at 180° F., and the blanched potato strips are then dipped into a 0.5% sodium chloride (2%) and sodium acid pyrophosphate (SAPP) and allowed to drip dry before placing them into a standard convection oven at 150° F. for 18 minutes to dry, but not be dehydrated. This drying reduces the moisture by about 12%.
Due to the inherent major size differences between the thin substrates used for potato chips and the thicker french-fry strips, as well as the differences between the nature of the finished products themselves, french-fry manufacturing processes are not utilized for potato chips, nor are they used for other snack foods. Thus, even in the case of potato chips, where thinly-sliced, raw potato substrates are used, there is no parfrying step involved, and there is also no freezing at all. Even greater differences exist in the case of other snack foods. For these and many other reasons, including the basic nature of the various products themselves, coating compositions such as are used for french fries have never been used or even considered for use in the snack and convenience food industry, so far as is known.
With reference to prior patents illustrating prior art coatings as referenced above, used primarily or exclusively for french-fried potato products that are frozen and reconstituted by gradient heating or microwave, U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,759 to Sloan et al., discloses a coating composition that contains cornstarch along with potato starch and rice flour in order to allegedly achieve a substantially clear and crisp potato coating having an extended holding time.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,189 to Stevens et al., describes a coated potato product having increased crispness and holding time through use of a coating having cornstarch in conjunction with corn flour and a low-solubility dextrin. This patent further claims that such coating composition is essentially non-allergenic.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,976,607, to Higgins et al. discloses the use of a substantial amount of modified cornstarch in a potato substrate coating to increase crispness of the final coated potato product, along with an amount of rice flour that serves to reduce or balance the crispness characteristic imparted through use of the modified cornstarch.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,918 to Melvej discloses a food coating composition for use on potatoes which contains a high percentage of cornstarch in relation to rice flour in order to obtain a coating composition which is said to impart increased crispness and holding time to the final cooked potato substrate product.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,435 to Sloan et al., discloses a process for preparing frozen coated potato products in which an aqueous starch slurry comprised of a combination of modified ungelatinized potato starch, modified ungelatinized corn starch, rice flour, and other optional ingredients, such as flavorings and seasonings, are utilized to allegedly improve the crispness of the final cooked coated potato product while maintaining the tenderness of the interior of the cut potato. The '435 patent also states that its disclosed coating, when placed upon a potato strip that is frozen, allows the potato product to be reconstituted within a conventional oven producing an acceptable product without decreased flavor characteristics.